operative fact
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 308 U.S. 371 - Chicot County Drainage District v. Baxter State Bank · 1940Most cited · 2,550 citing opinions
The actual existence of a statute, prior to such a determination, is an operative fact and may have consequences which cannot justly be ignored.
How often courts cite the case defining “operative fact”
Court decisions citing the opinion that defined “operative fact” — 2,544 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining case as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.